'Where am I... It's dark, too dark... I can't even see in front of me.'
In some ababdoned place, a body rose.
'Ug, what was that, it's sticky...' Hands traveling the ground, no sound or sight, no smell or taste, only texture and feelings.
"Mine... she is mine... everything is mine!" Sound...
"Who..? ...!? Get off me!! What the hell is this?" Anger, misery, sadness, resentment, avarice, and arrogance... this is the place where all convulse into one.
"He betrayed me... he left me behind..." Feelings worded, manifested...
'How the hell did I get here... no... where was I before...' Rotting... confusion...
Heands reaching out...
"Let me go!! No!! I'm sinking! Help me, someone!!" Desperation...
"Ah, so you were here, you made me search." A young voice, his arm was held, pulled up, everything else released.
*Gasp* A breath, a gasp he held under the surface, a taste in the air, a sight he could not see.
"Hi." A nonchalant child.
"Uh... ugh..."
"You seem confused. Don't worry, let's start at the beginning. Hi, I am Flux. What's your name brother?"
"My... Li... no..." He looked down, black liquid still swallowing their legs.
"Don't worry, it will come to you. All of us are born with a name. It is the world in your mind."
"World... not word?"
"As I said, you will understand it in time, but this place is dangerous and we should get going." He turned around beckoning to this new born.
"World... the world, it's echoing..."
"Hm?" A few steps and Flux looked back.
"Echo... My name is... Echo."
"Hmh, oh... Then let me welcome you to our world, Echo. From here on out, you are our brother and we are yours."
"Brothers... this feeling of kinship but this world..." He looked around. Darkness, shades of grey, it was rotting.
"Oh, don't worry, we are leaving this place for the upper one, give me your hand if you are ready."
"Uh, okay, but where- uh, stairs?" Their hands tuched, a flash. Did they move, or did this staircase appear in front of them?
"Ah, here it is, come, we are going up to the Altar." Flux easly stepped up onto the white steps stretching into the dark sky, but Echo... he froze up.
"Ah, sorry, I almost forgot, nothing can come up, give me your hand again."
"Yes..." He reached out, and his legs began to listen, to move, this dark liquid pulling him like quicksand, but his feet reached the step, and from then on, he could move further alone.
"What was this place..." Echo looked back, disgust and worry mixed on his face.
"The Abyss, or rather, that was what we called it before he got here, so I would rather say what it actually is... but let's get moving first, we have a long walk in front of us."
"Alright." They turned to never look back, and Flux began.
"Everything... I don't like to speak for uselessly long, so let me compact it for you. That dark is subtractive, it absorbs... Forgotten and subconscious, memories and feelings, powers and desires, that is a swap no one should or wants to come out of. It paints you, it drowns you, it becomes you... I must advise, do not come down here again not without a purpose."
"Then you..?"
"I came for you, to bring you back up. My purpose drags me back. I can't be held down there until I do so."
"..."
"Hmh?" Flux glanced back. "You seem lost... speak."
"I..." Silence, was he afraid? Of what?
"You don't feel right, the words you speak, the memories in your head, they don't feel right, they don't feel like yours, you don't know me or anything, even if you have a memory of me and feelings thats avoid you."
"I... yes..." A sigh... Tears? Was he apologetic?
"You might fear, run away, or just have a feeling that wants you to lie still here. We experienced it all before, too." Flux's voice softened.
"For now just try to remember a few things. You and me, you are me and I am you, you are a part of me and I am a part of you, a part of us and a part of you.
Whatever you want we will help, we are your family, we are your brothers, we are you."
"You can be sure you are not the first of the seventeen and probably not even the last.
Among us, there are no true secrets or hiden desires. We are one, and yet we are seventeen. It is our world, it is our way. You are no enemy, you are no mistake, even if we have different paths before us.
You might not know where is your place, we don't know it either, yet you can be sure of one thing: we will find it together if needed."
"Together..." His voice was low. Maybe he just said it to convey that he was listening, but still he couldn't even look at Flux's back as he walked in front of him.
"Hahah, you seem even more confused, ahahah. " Flux turned towards him, ruffling Echo's hair with a wide smile. "From here on out, you are the youngest of us, as your senior and guide for today, questions, all you can and want to ask, I shall try to answer them all."
"Didn't... didn't you say you don't like to speak for long?"
"Hahah, if we are moving, it's no trouble, either I am completely still or moving, there is no in between, any other?" Questions, answers, few or many, it matters little how many unfolded.
After some time.
"How many steps are left? We have been walking for so long, I can't even remember."
"Hmh, I think eight hundred... million..?"
"What? When the hell will we arrive then?"
"Hmh... it will take some time, do you have no more questions?"
"Uh? Uhm, no, I think I am fine for now."
"Then give me your hand."
"What are you pla-" A flesh, did they move, or did the door appear in front of them?
"Ah, sorry, I messed up." Flux scratched the back of his head.
"What?"
"Your last two questions, it was billion, not million, and for the last, three seconds, it takes three seconds."
"What..?" Was that three seconds? It felt like he just blinked, or did his mind shut off for a moment?
"Anyway, let's meet the others, and let me welcome you once again to this world, this Altar at the end of the world." With a wide smile, Flux pushed open the door in front of them.
*BOOM* A welcoming explosion into their face.
"Agh! ...?" An involuntarily defensive motion, followed by realization. 'Oh right, I can't be harmed here...'
"Oh, they are at it again, haha, come, come, let's watch together."
"They are... Feral and Persona, right?"
"Hmh, ah yes, I told the names, but let me introduce everyone once again.
Feral and Persona are rather noticeable, the mask and the instinct."
"G-guys, please don't do this, you will make us have a b-bad i-impresion."
"The one trying to calm the two is Phobia, the bravest of us all."
"Brave...?"
"Yes. Ah, the two over there contemplating the universe are Brilliance and Seeker." Echo's gaze followed Flux's pointing finger.
"The five having a tea party over there from left to right are Zenith, Aurora, Eclipse, Sylph, and Order. The one beside them who is singing to himself, or rather to that cup, is Relatio.
The snobs and the ones dragged into it, don't be bothered by them, hmh, but Zenith will probably challenge you to a game of Go, you don't have to accept, he will just play mad."
"Ohoho, someone has arrived." Relatio glanced at them, and his words flowed into everyone's ears.
"Hah, they noticed us, so let me finish this quickly.
In that dark corner that is Abyss, he seems stern, but if you don't know what to do, ask him, and he will help.
Those two over there, Original and the Monster, the first of us, both in strength and seniority." Original glanced at them, his gaze tightened, and for a moment, Echo felt like throwing up. It was a strange, sudden feeling, but Flux quickly dragged him back.
"Let's see, then there is me and you... Ah, right, there is Reason, he is outside right now, that's it, the seventeen."
"Tiana..?"
"Hmh? Ah, did I not tell you that? Anyway, you are replacing her. Now it's just us guys, haha."
"Replacing..." Echo was stuned at the realisation but he wasn't given even a moment.
"Everyone." Just as Flux finished, Original called. His voice was low, but everyone stopped what they were doing.
"Now that our new brother is here, let's welcome him and go to sleep, even without powers being used and suppressed thoughts. Reason is still far too overwhelmed."
"Hmh, fine, but before that... I still have one unfinished business."
"Feral?"
"Monster... you and I... I held back for far too long." At the clear challenge, Monster just raised an eyebrow. That wordless motion just angered Feral more, green flames surfacing from his fists.
"You want to oppose me? With that meager strength you have now?"
"Hah, let's see it then. Your sins the others might not know, but I can not and will not forgive them, not now or ever!!" His fire grew.
"Your strength is slowly returning, but that won't be enough. Flames that burn souls, it means nothing to me." Feral lounged forward.
"Shouldn't we stop them or something?" Echo sounded concerned. The display right now is completely different from before with Person, now Feral seemed serious.
"Hm? Ah, you are welcome to try." Flux and everyone else seemed rather passive. Were they waiting for something?
Jade fire burst across the Altar, scorching stone as Feral's fist shot forward. Monster didn't even flinch—his skin shimmered, crimson pulsing as the flames licked harmlessly across him.
"Life is mine to cleanse," Monster's voice low yet thundered with each step, each blow like a judge's gavel. "Rot festers in the marrow of men. They spread pain, so I give them pain, then release them. They awaken clean in the next life. That is mercy. That is freedom."
"Freedom... Cleansing? I see only slaughter. You swing your hand, and children die beside tyrants. You drown hope with the guilty. Don't dare call that salvation!" Feral snarled, his strike cracking across Monster, forcing the crimson back a single step.
Monster's reply came as a weight, low and heavy, like stone grinding. He caught Feral's next strike, crimson glowing against the emerald blaze. "You challenge my ideas, but what about you...
I remember them all. Every face. Every scream. Do you think I take joy in it? No. I carry them, freed from their chains. Many awoke kinder, gentler, lives untangled. That is my goal. That is my burden.
Yet you... a reckless, uncooperative maniac who wants to give everyone a fight, that's it nothing more, a baren and basic instinc to fight, what right do you have to challenge me?"
"Rights? I don't need rights to know that what you are doing is wrong!
You butchered the earth itself! Who are you to claim the right to cleanse it? Even the guilt, they had children, families, people who loved them! You drowned the world in blood and call it justice?!"
Monster laughed—a hollow, echoing sound that rattled even the stone of the Altar. His counterpunch slammed Feral across the floor. "Love, right...?
Their love was a weapon too. The tyrant loves his throne. The thief loves his gold. The rapist loves his pleasure. Should I have spared them because they felt something or someone felt for them?"
"You!!" Feral's flames ignited again, wrapping his body until he looked like a star about to explode. " Twisting my words!! I do not deny their sins-"
"I can't listen to this anymore..." A voice, one still unfamiliar to them, his silver-blue eyes reflected both their lights: crimson and jade. Eyes wide with terror and clarity both. His power rippled out.
Memory bleeding into the air.